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Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report V1.0 09/26/10
Activities 01-06
Following a 1998 strategy created with the American Petroleum Institute
MM were opportunistically recruited, first by Ebell (CEI), then with CEI
and GMI working together. They were brought to Washington, DC
various times, coached by experts, including Singer, with whom McIntyre
was already corresponding in 2003, at which time they were introduced to
Inhofe.
.
Activity 07
By early 2005, Inhofe was already using MM+TT anti-hockey stick
material, and the WSJ provided front-page publicity.
All this follows a standard pattern of using spokespeople who can seem
independent (like Baliunas and Soon, or MM), but work very closely
behind the scenes with TT and Congressional allies (CO), certainly
including Inhofe and Barton, at least. Such spokespeople get invited to
speak, although it seems to be getting more difficult, i.e., having to ask the
Viscount Christopher Monckton. Barton (TX) and Inhofe (OK) ran
parallel committees in House and Senate, were long-time allies and both
heavily funded by fossil energy companies:
Inhofe: (Koch Industries is #1, relevant due to the Koch‘s others)
www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005582&cycle=C
areer
www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N000055
82&type=I
Barton:
www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005656&cycle=C
areer
www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N000056
56&type=I
It would be astonishing if they had not communicated regularly on climate
issues, and if their staffs had not cooperated closely for years.
From years of cooperative efforts and emails shown in [MAS02010, A.9],
it is hard to imagine MM ideas and plans not spreading quickly through
30
TT. If something useful is learned by any of the key group in the
Washington, DC area, they would likely all hear about it quickly:
� (CEI) Ebell, Horner
� (GMI) Kueter, O‘Keefe, perhaps Herlong
� (SEPP) Singer
From some emails, even trivial matters seemed to propagate quickly.
Email is wonderful, unless someone comes looking with subpoena power.
Activity 08
MM presented MM05x, as key talk for GMI, 05/11/05, followed by
discussion, with chronology starting in A.5 (Step 08). Unlike some earlier
meetings, questioners are not named, but these meetings seem to be used:
� to evaluate the newest material,
� to make suggestions, and
� to sometimes include a few outsiders to learn to anticipate questions
likely to be asked in less friendly environments.
Of course, this is the publicly recorded material, not the side conversations
and meetings. Given records of past GMI meetings, I would be surprised if
there had been no CO staffers in attendance.
The WR vaguely references this as dated 09/06/05, but never cites it or
identifies it as a GMI-hosted document. That is probably not accidental.
The date hints that it is an early document provided by Spencer. See W.8.9
for a longer discussion of its ideas, including the red-marked Memes❶.
Much of this talk would never survive credible peer review, but it
represents a good set of talking points, refined over years by MM+TT, and
it sounds like science.
Activity 09 – Barton, Whitfield letters
It seems plausible that these letters were triggered by the Phil Cooney
scandal and impending energy bill. TT+CO likely needed some good PR,
and MM05x was fresh in people‘s minds, with Ebell especially helpful.
The letters were written.
[MAS02010, A.9.6] showed that Ebell had copies of the PDFs of the
Barton/Whitfield letters less than 2 hours after they were created late
Friday afternoon 06/24/05, before recipients could possibly have responded